In Defense of Hipsters

They're known to be politically progressive, environmentally conscious, anti-consumerist and feminist — what’s not to like?

At one time, I had total contempt for the old person, in the
room of young people, who knew everything about youth culture — but now I am
that old person. Recently I’ve been spending time with hipsters.

It’s not that I act
like a young person — that, I really can’t stand. I don’t dress like a hipster,
since only youth can pull off commie shleppy retro (ironically) or carefully
mismatched nutty professor ensembles. If I wore that I would look insane.

I also don’t speak youthful jargon — “no worries” and
“awesome” are not part of my vocabulary. In my youth, I spoke Anthony Burgess’s
fictional language in “A Clockwork Orange” and, as a school kid Pig Latin,
which in my neighborhood was the Jewish kids’ non-kosher retort to Yiddish, the
language spoken when adults didn’t want you to understand.

I didn’t seek out hipsters nor did I even realize until
recently that I gravitated toward them: Toward cafes where people in their 20s
play board games, knit, read well-worn paperbacks, arrive on a fixed-gear
bicycle, sit in groups and talk, actually talk. I’d been a fan of college
indie and alternative music before I discovered that hipsters were, too. I’m
proud to say that I turned my 23-year-old son on to Disclosure, the electronic
music duo, and Daft Punk before they were famous.

My son, Theo, is a hipster but it took me awhile to realize
there is a tribe of kids like him. He’s long been a reader of deep and
eccentric authors, an experimental theater-meets-Shakespeare actor, a sensitive
and romantic soul, an unplugged kind of guy. He lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn,
sports a ponytail and facial hair, wears peg-leg pants, loves interesting cuisine, has a record
collection and a record player, watches the Web series “High Maintenance” and
hates “Girls,” and gets around on an old Schwinn bike.

Theo is one of the people who I most like spending time
with. He’s a great conversationalist, is curious about so many things, and is
used to having conversations uninterrupted by gadgets – but I find this to be
true of many hipsters.

Several years ago, I went to the holiday party of an
acquaintance whose 25-year-old son made a 6-figure income as an innovator and shareholder
of a hugely famous social media company. Up to that point, I had not met anyone
who worked in social media but thought it amazing that such talented, smart,
young people were responsible for making the world a smaller place, a global
village, so I was looking forward to meeting him.

I was appalled. He sat with friends and they all interacted
primarily with their devices, occasionally grunting monosyllabically to one
another. His mother had to nearly hit him over the head with a pan to get him
to look up and smile a fast and fake smile as he was introduced to guests. And
the only time he actually spoke was to make fun of Occupy Wall Street, which
was still nascent.

Granted, this is one person but it really opened my eyes to
how alienating, how ultimately lonely, it is to interact with machines when
people are on the periphery.

People like to make fun of hipsters because of their
self-consciousness pared-down lifestyle. Two jokes about hipsters are:

Why did the hipster burn his mouth?

Because he ate his food before it was cool.

How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

It's an obscure number, you've
probably never heard of it.

I don’t really care that hipsters are a little show-offy
about their knowledge of alternative music, draft beer, '70s clothes, gardening or authentic food. What youth culture is not self-reverential? It is a stage in
becoming an autonomous person.

What I appreciate about hipsters is their nonconformity in
this age of militaristic flash mobs, copycat school shooters and lax gun laws,
and mind-numbing tech pastimes like video games. It might seem like they are
conforming to the nuances of hipsterdom, but as with any cultural group, you
have to adopt the codes to be legible. There is a lot of room for
interpretation though, like hippies.

Hipsters are uber-menschs, meaning they are generally into
really good things and earnestly proud of their affiliation. The Occupy
movement was started by hipsters, and if you don’t know what "permaculture" means or why Monsanto is ruining the planet, ask a hipster.

Hipsters are known to be politically progressive,
environmentally conscious, anti-consumerist and feminist. Though they might
not outright use the term "feminist," women and men participate and are valued equally in the
culture. Unlike hippies (which, granted, was a long time ago), the women
don’t wait on the men or dress for them, and chores, hobbies and interests are not
gender-coded.

I have a lot in common with hipsters, as do most progressive
baby boomers. We are on the same page politically, environmentally and socially,
and we generally have a raised-eyebrow attitude toward high tech. I’ve learned
about things from indie music to community-supported agriculture (CSAs) from
hipsters. And I no longer mind being the old person in the room.